[tlhIngan Hol] is the choice between -Daq and -vaD influenced by the way something is given?

[Will Martin]

This is stated for amusement purposes only, okay.

Context is always important.

Imagine an animal capable of communicating with you sufficiently to complain to you about the smell of the leftovers, expressing refusal to offer you eggs, milk, or whatever, unless you get rid of these leftovers in the animal’s containment area.

Now, read {Ha’DIbaHvaD chuvmey vIvo’.}

I’d probably be saying that to describe me propelling the leftovers AWAY FROM THE ANIMAL.

{-vaD} tells you nothing about direction, unless direction is associated with grammatical benefit for the beneficiary. {-Daq} suggests direction without any reference to an indirect object. It’s simply a location associated with the action of propelling.

Of course, even then, you need some context to make it clear whether you are standing at the location, propelling something somewhere, or whether you are somewhere propelling something at the location. If you are thinking about {-Daq} contrasting with {-vo’}, you’d expect to be propelling something toward the locative reference, but it’s always valid to interpret the locative as describing the location that action is happening.

That’s the problem with {-Daq}. It’s a location and it may or may not imply not a direction. {-vo’} is a location WITH a direction relative to that location.

{-Daq} can suggest a target of an action or merely the location the action happens.

Usually, if an action is of a type that has an implied target, we interpret it as the target, but most actions don’t even have motion or direction, and those are generally expected to occur at the location of the locative, and you can’t be sure that an action that implies motion isn’t also something that is happening at the location of the locative, without context.

And then you have {ghoS} and its ilk. {X-Daq Y vIghoS} means either you are at X headed for Y, or X is a medium of travel (like a river or a ship) in order to get to Y, or  maybe even that Y is your destination, and you’ll get there via a path/course/heading that is more strongly associated with Y than X is, so you are saying something like “I’m headed to Vienna, VA on the Washington DC road.”

{X vIghoS} means “I’m moving along a path named by X.” That most commonly means X is the target of the path, but not necessarily. X could be some other point along the path, including the point you are starting from, or somewhere behind you.

As always, the more context both people share, the less careful and explicit the choice of words needs to be.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Feb 15, 2021, at 8:35 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
>> But would we use the {-vaD} too even if we threw the knife to him?
>> 
>> Ha'DIbaHvaD chuvmey vIvo'
>> I give the leftovers to the animal by throwing them to it
> You propel he leftovers, intending them to be received by the animal. That's a perfectly good use of the indirect object.
> 
> 

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